On The Side: Something To Chew On...

Healthy eating can have benefits ranging from better blood sugar handling, improved digestion/absorption, reduced stress, appropriate gut flora balance, mood enhancement and much more. There are many diets and lifestyle choices to sort through to set yourself on this path; however, there are other factors that we often overlook that have a big impact on our health. The simple act of chewing, for example.

Yes, chewing your food well is the first step in making sure you are getting the most out of all the food you eat. You can have the best ingredients and a meal prepared to perfection - only to lose out on nutritional benefits because you didn’t chew it well enough. Let’s break this down a little bit more.

Chewing has two phases: a mechanical one and a chemical one.

The mechanical one is easy to grasp - we need to break down the food into smaller and smaller bits. The obvious reason is for swallowing, but they also play an important role in how our body digests the food and can affect the balance within our gut flora.

As we chew, we mix the food in with saliva that is full of enzymes starting the chemical phase of chewing. These salivary enzymes begin the chemical breakdown of food on a molecular level and function to kill any bacteria that may be present on the food.

Digestion of food is a chain reaction of sorts - each step has to occur for the next one to function efficiently. Therefore, both of these interdependent processes are vital in making sure the food we eat is made available for the rest of the digestive process to take place. Any problems with this first step can get magnified later in the gut and cause problems in digestion as a whole.

So then, how many times do we need to chew each bite? Well, that depends on a lot of factors, but research has given us the average range of 20-30 times each bite. Counting each bite would be tedious, so the best way to apply this in practice is to thoroughly chew the texture out of the food. And keep in mind that if you find you have to drink a lot to “wash your food down”, then chances are you are not chewing enough.